It’s been a month since we returned from Disney World, and for that entire time I’ve been intending to reflect about Disney with disability/celiac. We are planners in our house, but oh! the heights of planning we have achieved since my daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease. Our first meal at a restaurant required a…
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Between Luddism and addiction
Last night I dreamed I had a smart phone and I was eating it. Weird, I know. I’ll chalk it up to being in the process of writing this blog post. Because I had a moment this past week that shocked me, even though it was only a visceral confirmation of things I already knew.…
Read MoreCOVID dreams
I’ve been having COVID dreams lately. This didn’t happen to me for the first six or seven months. I often laid awake feeling great anxiety, but I didn’t dream about it. But I am now. The first time, I dreamed that the church choir I lead all got together on Wednesday night as usual, no…
Read MoreAdults Behaving Badly
Everybody else’s families had been out at the ballfields for nearly four hours by the time I got back there last night—even the four-year-old little sister of Alex’s teammate. I was the slacker; all I’d done from 4p.m. on was take kids to piano, pick up dinner at Hy Vee, drop Nicholas at cub…
Read MoreThat Moment When I Realize the Problem is Me
This might come as a shock to many people. (Brace yourselves, sisters!) Occasionally…very occasionally…I do fleetingly think, “Gee, if I had a smart phone right now I could…” I always decide that for me, the benefit would be far outweighed by the nuisance, the expectation of being always available. But I’ve realized in the past few…
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Of Mammograms and a Rising Star
I am trying to figure out how to open this post with something snappy that will make everyone click through, and I’m coming up blank. There are weeks when all you can do is put your head down and charge through. But I realize it’s pretty whiny to call what I experienced the past seven…
Read MoreThe Saga of Orthotics, and why it’s important to talk about it during an election year
I hope you’ll bear with me today, because there’s a reason I’m about to tell this story. One thing that sometimes accompanies an extra 21st chromosome is “pronation.” This means that due to low muscle tone, the feet turn out. Julianna has fabulous health and good cognitive functioning but her feet are regularly regarded as…
Read MoreMercy In The Age of Facebook
Because the spiritual works of mercy have always been a little tough to pin down, I offer this today: The Spiritual Works of Mercy – in the Age of Facebook Mark Piper 🔶 To Give Counsel to the Doubtful, in person, without a shield of anonymity, with charity and goodwill as your motivation 🔶 To Instruct…
Read MoreEasy/Hard
Why is it so easy to see or hear one detail and leap to the worst possible conclusion about a person’s motivations? Why is it so easy to give our past hurts permission to control our present reactions, and block out reason when it urges moderation? Why is it so easy to skip over grief…
Read MoreThe Awesome And Terrible Responsibility of Raising Boys
At present, the web is a hornet’s nest of outrage over the light sentence given to the swimmer convicted of rape—and his father’s response—and his victim’s lengthy, no-punches-pulled response to her attacker. And all of this makes me think about myself as a parent, and what this means about my particular responsibility as a parent…
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Kathleen M. Basi 